Good Inside with Dr. Becky - Raising Anti-Racist, Anti-Bias Kids with Britt Hawthorne

Episode Date: May 17, 2022

How do we talk to kids about race? Most parents are unsure when to start talking about it with their kids, what language to use, and how to unpack nuanced topics with candor. In this episode, Dr. Becky talks with anti-bias, anti-racist facilitator Britt Hawthorne about how, when, and why to start important conversations in your home. Together, they explore the difference between talking about race and talking about racism, what language and tools you can use with even the youngest children, and what to do when you encounter your own racist, prejudiced, and ableist thoughts. Britt also shares her own journey as a bi-racial woman and parent that brought her to this work. This is a not-to-be-missed episode that will leave you feeling equipped with so many new tools. Join Good Inside Membership: https://bit.ly/3cqgG2A Follow Dr. Becky on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbeckyatgoodinside Sign up for our weekly email, Good Insider: https://www.goodinside.com/newsletter Order Dr. Becky's book, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be, at goodinside.com/book or wherever you order your books. For a full transcript of the episode, go to goodinside.com/podcast

You're listening to Good Inside with Dr. Becky. My guest today is anti-racist, anti-bias educator, speaker, and advocate, Britt Hawthorne. In this episode, Britt and I talk about concrete strategies to raise anti-racist children, the work we can do on ourselves, and why it's important to celebrate each other's differences.

With all that in mind, let's jump in. Hey, Sabrina. Hey. celebrate each other's differences. With all that in mind, let's jump in. Hey Sabrina. Hey. So I've been thinking about toys recently. I don't want the toy to do that much of the work. I want the toy to inspire my kid to do the work. Because actually the toys that get really busy

and do a lot of things, kids actually lose interest in so quickly. Oh totally. There are certain toys that my kids have just played with throughout the years. I have a six-year-old and a three-year-old. Like what? So I have these wooden blocks from Melissa and Doug.

They're super simple. Just plain wooden, no-color, and my kids love them. They're always building kessles or like a dinosaur layer. And then my oldest will tell my youngest to like, decorate them after he's built this crazy cool structure. My go-to's are Melissa and Doug too. I feel like we have this ice cream scooper thing that my kids use when they were two and then they used again when they were developing better fine motor skills and then for my kind of four year old, my seven year old, still using it

in imaginative play. I really only like talking about items and brands that we actually use in our own home and Melissa and Doug. I just don't know if there's any other brand I feel so good about naming the way that their toys actually inspire creativity and open-ended, screen-free, child-led play, it's just unmatched. And what's honestly so exciting is to be able to offer everyone listening to this podcast,

20% off. Visit MelissaAndUg.com and use code DrBecky20DRBECKY20 for 20% off your order. Melissa and Doug, timeless toys, endless possibilities. Hi, I'm Dr. Becky, and this is Good Inside. I'm a clinical psychologist and mom of three on a mission to rethink the way we raise our children. I love translating deep thoughts about parenting into practical, actionable strategies that you can use in your home right

away. One of my core beliefs is that we are all doing the best we can. With the resources we have available to us in that moment. So even as we struggle and even as we are having a hard time on the outside. We remain good inside. [♪ Music playing in background, music playing know who you are and the types of things you're interested in. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I am honored, excited, and just full of joy to be here. I am Britt. If I'm new to you, I'm most affirmed by she, her pronouns, but I also respond to they them pronouns as well. they then pronouns as well. I professionally am an anti-bias, anti-racist facilitator. I work with caregivers and educators, really introducing them to anti-bias education and anti-racist education, what it is,

and how do we actually make it practical? How do we implement it? So we can move from it being an idea to really being the culture. And at home, I'm a mom to two incredible children, we typically call them artists 15 and nine, which I cannot believe. And if you're in a personality test, I have to say I'm an ISFJ and an Enneagram nine. Thank you. That is an amazing introduction. I feel like you and I can talk about so many different things,

and I'm sure the conversation will me under to a variety of them, but at least as a star, I'd love to kind of just enter into a conversation with you about anti kind of bias, anti racism in the house, like with our kids, right? When our kids are young, when our kids are kind of tuddlers,

elementary school, and kind of an up, and kind of jumping into why this matters, how we can make a concrete. And also, I know you and I always love brainstorming around these situations that feel kind of complicated or on the surface make us say, what do I say back or what do I do? Kind of these tricky situations that I think we all can get into with our kids. So I'll start a little bit with my own journey into anti-races. So I grew up Midwestern, born and raised, grew up. I'm black by racial, my mom is white, my dad is black.

And so I don't think there was a day that went by that we didn't talk about race, but I have to be honest, I didn't really have the skill set to talk about racism. And that's very different. And so while I think there's folks out there that can notice, get in color, can talk about maybe that there's some differences that do exist. We are not necessarily equipped with the language to talk about unfairness and injustice and to really understand it. Then I became a teacher and I started to see the inequities that exist for very young children, six, seven, eight year olds.

And I'm thinking children are just starting out in their academic career at this age. How is that already that we have gaps? How is it that we already have children that are coming within equities? And then how do we prevent that? So that's kind of how I started my journey was me just being in the thick of it

and noticing it and seeing it. And then when I had my own children. Also then noticing the ways in which they are personally being treated differently, being treated unfairly and experiencing educational racism. I've just kind of dove, I mean, just head first, into understanding what the problems are today, why we have groups of people that are disadvantaged because of racism, why we have inequities that exist, not just in education, but exist in life expectancies, health outcomes exist within our wealth. We have a wealth disparity in this country. Why do we still have segregated

communities? If, you know, Dr. King marched and I was taught that now we have unity, why do all of these things still exist? And so from there, what I realized are these are really systemic issues and that we have to have a systemic approach to the solutions with it. So that's how I started was professionally. Then you start to hear all of these things from caregivers saying, it starts at home, right? These conversations have to start at home. But here was my problem.

It didn't start at home, and I didn't know how to have the conversations. I didn't even know how to accurately identify the problem. So how can I give my children something I don't actually have the skill set for? And so now what I do is I intentionally create an anti-bias, anti-racist home and I'm working to gain these skill sets very imperfectly, but I'm like working to have these skills to have strategies and tools and language so that as people say it starts at home that I can really start in my home and my children are truly set up to not only be empathetic, not only to critically think these really

large problems, but then how do we move to action to how do we be a part of the solution? I actually want to go back to what you started with in your home, because I'm sure listeners who will relate to that. Just even the difference between talking about race and talking about racism or the tools to notice differences in race versus the tools to identify and talk about racism. Can you just separate those two things for us?

Yes, that's a beautiful question because sometimes we think one is the other, right? So talking about race is really talking about something that is socially economically and politically crafted. It's been created in manufacture. And while we have scientists created and manufactured. And while we have scientists who have tried to prove that race is biological, I always call that pseudoscience, that there's no such thing genetically, that we have a genetic marker that's our race. So race is something that's been invented

and continues to be manufactured. And then because we've all have bought into in the United States this idea that race is real and that race makes differences and because we have those differences that it's somehow okay to treat people better or people can receive more access or advantages, then we've created a system based on power

that comes into racism. So racial categories, and those have shifted over time, and that's something that I learned as I've researched, right? I grew up thinking that race was something that was pretty real, and it was based off of your skin color, or geographical location of your ancestors. Then as I started to research, and what I do with my young children right around seven years old, I start to ask them questions like, have you ever thought about how many racial groups there are? Have there always been five or six? You know, who do you think is left out? And to really just kind of start getting our mind, and as we ask those big questions,

and some people can name those, and some people can't, then we start to really see the holes in a manufactured system. So racial identity is something that we all have. We all have a racialized body here in the United States, so you could be white, black, Asian, Native American, American Indian, Indigenous. And so we all have a racial identity. And that racial identity allows us to have access or denied access to certain things in this country. And when we start to have advantages or disadvantages backed by power, now that's racism. And so racism is talking about the unfair treatment of a group of people.

And when you said race was talked about in your home, more than racism. What kind of conversations were had? What kind of conversations were absent? Oh yeah, so we, a lot of times it was really kind of fun, loving conversations that we would have. Sometimes there are things based in stereotypes, so I'll give you an example. We oftentimes would make fun of like the way that macaroni and cheese for certain groups of people will be an entire meal. And they're just like a bowl of mac and cheese, but for another group of people, it's a side dish. And so on my mom's side, like mac and cheese, we could eat it for lunch. That was it. Same with spaghetti. It's like a whole meal. But on my dad's side, it's like, oh no, that's a side dish. We have to have it with catfish or

we have it with chicken. And so thinking about race and noticing it in that way, the way that we parent our children. And so sometimes if my dad would do something, you know, it's like, oh, that's, that's the black side of you. So it's like, oh, that's, that's the black side of you. So we oftentimes like will notice that when we would go places, we would go to church on Sunday, we oftentimes will point out how many black people are in the service because it was so few of us, we could actually point it out in a sea of 200. You know, if we went to a ball game, same thing. And there's one time in particular that I can remember being probably eight years old. And that was the first time I've heard

really talk to me about racism. We were at the store, we went to all the time. And it was like our, like, a larger drug store. And I remember my dad was feeling pretty sick and so he stopped in the drug store for him to pick some medicine up. And we were being followed and it was so blatant that we were being followed through this store. And it was my first experience really being conscious of that. And my dad, if you ever meet him, it's really funny, fun, loving, very calm, mellow, just demeanor about him. And so he just turned around and said, you're following me, I know you're following me because I'm black and you need to go away.

And at that point, I had never really thought about racism in that way. Like why would someone follow us because we were black? So while we talked about race, we talked about skin color, we talked about differences, we didn't usually talk about the impacts of the discrimination. If a family is listening to this and they're a family who is wondering, okay, well, should I be talking about race to my kid? If my kid is white, should I be talking about race to my kid? If my kid is white,

should I be having that conversation? Should we be talking about racism, how they might be less likely to be followed in a store? Right, I know one of the things about the listeners here is they're here ideas and they they want to put them into action. They want to know kind of what what can I do? We want to first start with always educating ourselves. That's this lifelong journey. I'm still just being curious and I'm trying to repear at myself. As you repear at yourself and you're modeling with your children,

you're going to notice your language is shifting. Your language is going to become more accurate. Your language is also going to become more fluid and flexible. You're also going to notice how you have more comfort and confidence thinking about human differences and also unpacking. So start with yourself. Second of all what's really important is when you have young children regardless of the racial identity we also want to start with skin tones. So sometimes caregivers have right into racial identities. We want to pause on racial identities because racial identities come with history, particularly difficult or hard history. We want to wait until a child's an elementary so that we can start talking about like what is the

story or the history of the white racial identity or what is the story or history of black racial identity. So we're going to pause on that one and with your young children too for your zold you just want them getting comfortable with having accurate language for skin tones. So you might start with making skin tone paint together with your child, mix the three primary colors together, maybe a little white or a little black, and have them find a just right shade. We're not looking for perfection, something where they say like,

yes, this is my skin tone, and you're like, what would you call this? Right, and they might say sand, beach sand, white sand, they might say almond, they might say peach, they might say, mom's latte, go with it. You can make extras and bottle it up. And then you can start to do different crafts with that skin tone paint,

but then start to introduce other skin tones to them as well and say, what would you call this skin tone when you're reading a book together at night or you're watching a television show? Right now what you're doing for them is you're saying, hey, we notice differences. Differences are beautiful. There's language for differences. So we're really having this like nomenclature that most of us didn't have growing up for how to talk about skin tones as well. So that's really where you want to start with children two, four years old and they're young. That also means when your children start to notice

they're gonna be out and about and they're gonna ask questions. They might ask you, why is that man skin so dark and you have to be prepared to respond to that? Let's stay with that. So someone has their, let's say it's their daughter in a grocery store and they hear this question. And I think that there can be this reaction of, oh no, right? Almost as horror at that question. But along the lines of noticing

or even verbalizing differences, tell me, tell me what that question says to you, and what that question from a child does not say. I want to say something about when you said, there might be this horror to that. And I just want everyone to know when you have that physical reaction of horror, I think it's because for so long, so many of us have been conditioned to say,

or to think that if I see differences, then that makes me prejudice. Or that if my child sees race or sees color, even just by seeing that's a racist act, and it's not. It's not. Right? So to your question, Dr. Becky, of like, when a child says that, it tells me that their mind is turning. Like the wheels are turning and they're saying, hey, can you help me to understand the world I'm experiencing? Can you help me to understand this moment? They know intimately who they are

and they're also constructing who they're not. So they're saying there's something different here. Just like they would ask you about the sky, if it's raining outside, and they might say, why is it raining? It might be something that's new or different for them. And they're just inviting you into their world to say, can you give me some language? Can you help me to understand this? So what it's not is prejudice by any means, that curiosity. And when we notice differences, particularly a person's skin color,

we also then are recognizing a part of their humanity. It's a part of their identity. Right, it's recognizing that in someone else. I think for so long, we always wanted to find similarities with other people. Right, and so we get really comfortable about finding what's similar in order for us to be nice or for us to be good or for us to be kind.

And what we're saying really is we can be different. We actually all have the right to be different. And yet we still can be kind and good and nice, right? It's like, it's an and not a but. Yes. So let's get into this moment, right? It's like, it's an and not a but. Yes. So let's get into this moment, right? Cause I know you and I both like to make things really concrete. So my four year old daughter says, Oh, that person's skin colors so much darker than mine.

Why? So we're going to put in the no bucket, the sh, or in the no bucket, might be, we don't say things like that, right? Or something like that. Yes. What? What goes in the no bucket, right? We don't say things like that, right? Or something like that. Yes. What goes in the yes? Let's see. What can we put for parents in the yes bucket?

So I definitely would say, oh, that's a beautiful question. Everyone gets their skin color from something called melanin. It's this invisible genetic code that our parents give us. So some people have more melanin than others, and the more melanin, the darker this skin. And then I kind of usually will just take a pause for my children because again, they're thinking.

And then I also want to say, what other questions do you have? Or can you ask me another question? I'm letting them know I'm affirming what they're noticing is good. It's right to keep inviting me in that conversation Because I also want to hear anything that they may have drawn And accurately so that I can unwork that too I love that so much so And what you're doing there I think about everything through an attachment perspective and I feel like our kids when they're young

Right, they're always wondering what parts of me get closeness and connection, i.e. safety, right? And what parts of me get distance and disconnection, i.e. threat. And obviously, distance and connection could be, you know, go, go to your room or you're kicked out of the house. Obviously, there's a, you know, a proximal distance there. But distance can also be the dark eyes. We give our kids, you know, the like, oh yeah, like that look that you just know.

We all remember the look. Right. Or it's like, we can talk about this in the van. You know, and it's like, oh, stomach dropped. Yeah. And what a kid actually does with that, You know, and it's like, oh, stomach dropped, yeah. And what a kid actually does with that, if they get the glare or that we can talk about this

in the van or don't say things like that, right? It's really not the content they hear. What they actually hear is the part of me that noticed a difference and was curious about it is bad. It's bad because it's met with this threat feeling that comes when my attachment feels less secure with my parent. And then that lesson of what feels safe

or threatening with a parent, that's the override system for a kid because that's how they survive is by making sure they maximize attachment. And so if they're noticing a difference is met with a harsh shutdown, they will kind of tell themselves, don't ask those questions, don't even notice it, that is so bad. Not anything to do with their beliefs about skin color, all driven by this mechanism of attachment.

When young children, when they also feel threatened, they now can also associate that skin color, that person, right, threatening something here might not be safe. And they're not coding things. They're young, they're four, they're five, they're curious. And so now that moment with that skin color, that association, that fight or flight feeling, that they're now having, it's all setting in in that one moment. And I think it's really important to you gave such powerful examples.

But I want all the caregivers to remember to, if you're holding your child's hand and you end up squeezing their hand really tight or you blush or your heart starts beating and your child can pick up on all of that. They're picking up on something about this is uncomfortable. Okay. And so now I'm on something about this is uncomfortable. Okay, and so now I'm also taking in this discomfort too, which is why it's so important that we educate ourselves. We get comfortable, we get confident. And if anytime, you're unsure of how to respond, you know, you can always just say, hmm, that's such a great question. And it's one of those questions I haven't thought of just yet.

Let me go and do some research, or let me ask my parenting partner, and I'll get back to you. Right, and so, and you're modeling humility to your child, your modeling vulnerability, and that just kind of continue that we're a lifelong learner. So never ever feel like, gosh, Brett, that was a great answer. I don't think in the moment I would have that one.

Just always feeling powered to model and say, I don't know just yet, but I'll find out or we can find out together. And I think that's right. That if we're going to all memorize one script from this episode, it's what you just said or I know sometimes I try to say to my kid, that's a great question. great questions, deserve great answers, and I don't have one on the spot for you. I'm gonna get it and come back to you.

And then I think the thing that we should know as parents is parents will often say that in a tricky situation. Maybe it's that moment in the grocery store. Maybe it's your three-year-old unexpectedly saying to you, are you gonna die one day, right? It could be anything, I just think, oh my goodness, what am I gonna say? And then remember to go back to your kid.

You don't need your kid to ask again to have permission to go back. That question was asked, which means the wondering was there. And either we meet that wondering with a kind of answer or a thought process or we leave it alone for a kid. And so I always hold myself accountable to go back to my child, even if they don't end

up saying to me, hey, mom, remember that question that you haven't answered yet. Yes, I love that. Hey, quick thing. If you follow me on Instagram, or if you're a part of the Good Inside membership, you probably know I've written a book. And I'm so excited to say that you no longer have to pre-order it. You can order it because it's available right now. You might have guessed the title is Good Inside, a guide to becoming the parent you want to be. And let me be clear, it's not a book for perfect parenting. It is a book that will

help parents like you feel empowered, confident, and sturdy. Visit goodinside.com slash book to order your copy today. Now let's get back to the episode. Let's go back to that moment because one of the thing I want to give parents in that kind of grocery store moment or wherever you are is if you're a parent you're thinking, oh, but what if I can't catch myself before that hand squeeze or I do the glare and then I'm at home thinking, oh, my child just asked about skin color. I wish I didn't have that reaction. Oh, is it too late, right?

So it is never too late. And just naming to your child what you noticed about your reaction is already, it's a massive intergenerational change. So you can say to your child that night or it could be weeks later, hey, remember when we're in the grocery store and you asked me about that person's skin color and I ended up saying to you, oh, you're being so rude, don't say things like that. I wish I said something else. And, you know, it's made me think about how my parents never talk to me about different people's skin color and actually talking about differences you notice is actually a really good thing.

And it's actually something I want us to do. And I'm sorry if that moment fell bad to you, right? And I hear your words in my head. I just don't want to say that I'm going to let you share them with kind of some powerful language. You've shared about how you can name your own, maybe whether they're prejudice beliefs to your kid when you notice them coming up about kind of picking something up.

So can you share some of that? Cause I think the listeners will find that language really powerful too. Oh yeah. So as I've shared my own journey, I have picked up a lot of things. I've picked up stereotypes. I've picked up microaggressions along the way.

And so when I notice that as you're saying, Dr. Becky, that I always like to tell my child, I don't know where I pick that up, but I'm going to go ahead and put that back down, or I'm going to work to put it back down. And I want my children to also hopefully internalize that message, as that they go through their life, none of us, not one single person on this planet, is going to be immune to picking up prejudice or saying something that's rooted in racism or rooted in ableism or rooted in homophobia. And so sometimes what we've picked up, we're sharing with our children, we're sharing

with loved ones. And so what I want my children to know is, first of all, I've picked something up, I don't know where I got it from, I'm going to work to put it back down. And I hope by even modeling that self-talk with myself, I'm modeling it with my children, but for myself, that later in life, when they also have picked something up and they're in a loving relationship with a friend, they're in a loving relationship with a different caregiver,

and they say something and someone calls them man out on it that they can say, oh, I don't know where I pick that up. I'm going to go ahead and work to put it back down. The goal is in, I'm going to free myself forever of any racist, prejudiced, ableist thoughts just forever. But the goal is, I'm going to try to catch those thoughts when they come, recognize them, be curious about them and work to put them down. Is that, is that the goal? 100% and you've talked about this before Dr. Becky about how this is a practice. Right? Just like if it's a yoga practice or we just had the Houston marathon, we were out there cheering for those folks. The runners, that's a practice

and becoming anti-bias anti-racist is also a practice. The goal is never going to become 100% free because there's a lot of different factors that's creating these behaviors. Some of it is going to be biases that are working against us. Other times, it's just things that have been normalized a part of our culture,

in which we have to have people to be able to say that rule, that law, that policy, that belief, that is not uphold our values. And I know that that's the way it's always been done, and that's never a good excuse to keep doing something that way. Right? And so there's a lot of different factors that's playing in it. So we all have to work to become anti-bias anti-racist. I was love putting becoming in front of that word, even for myself, like, I am becoming. But it will never be a destination for us to arrive. I think that's just so, so freeing, right? Because there's always an opportunity. You're never kind of in the, oh, I messed that

up category because those moments where you could put it into the failure category could be the same moment you think, Oh, here's my opportunity. Like, this is my bang for my buck moment where I can pause and say, Well, what? What was that? And let me look into that. So we actually want kids to notice differences in the world across the board differences. This is how they put their kind of understanding their stories together. Let's take something that's more than noticing. You know, your child wants to invite to a birthday party. Anyone with darker skin keeps getting the, no, no, I don't like her. I don't like him.

Yeah. So, I have this acronym called Share that's really, really helpful for me. So I'll kind of first just say, what each letter stands for, and then we'll kind of go through some examples and we can try to recap that. Great.

So for Share, I really want to share in the learning with my child. I'm not trying to distance myself from what they've done, and I want to make sure I'm not trying to distance myself from what they've done and I want to make sure I'm connecting. So first I'm going to say something right away. I'm going to say something in my child right away. Then I want to help them to understand. For our young children, two, three, four, that's really going to be something experiential. I want to do with my child. If they're older, six, seven, that might be a conversation I'm having with them.

I also might need to ask for help, especially if it's something that I know is in me that I haven't unpacked yet. I'm not going to be the best expert to guide my child. I'm going to have to really recognize and interrogate, oh gosh, this is something generational. And so I'm gonna have to turn to Google, I'm gonna have to turn to parenting partners, I'm gonna have to find an episode with Dr. Becky, right? I wanna also, if my child said something in front of someone, I wanna repair the harm with the other child. And I really wanna model what his repair look like.

And then last but not least, embrace the critical conversation, which I think is the hardest one, especially for caregivers. We want to be perfect. I know, it's, we want to be perfect. We want to feel like we're checking everything off the to-do list. We want to feel like we have all the right answers.

We want to feel like we're just on top of it, right? I am introducing foods at the right time. We're walking at off the to-do list. We want to feel like we have all the right answers. We want to feel like we're just on top of it. I am introducing foods at the right time. We're walking at the right time. We're hitting all those milestones that the pediatrician talks about. And when we don't, sometimes that starts to really affect us, which means that I might avoid having a critical conversation. So let's say, I know, I noticed my child is refusing to play with another child because they're too dark. I'm definitely going to say that,

hey, this is what I'm noticing. Do you notice it too? Or I might say, you're noticing her skin color is darker than yours. Or their skin color is darker than yours, and your skin color is lighter than theirs. That part is really important, especially for our children with white skin, pale skin, light skin, because they're so centered in media, they're centered in children's books that they can start to feel like they are the neutral or their dominant, that dominant identity can feel like it's quote unquote, right. And what I want them to know is that you're on a spectrum. There's light skin and there's dark skin. And you too are on that spectrum, which is why it's

important for white families. Your children, six, seven, older, your white child needs to have language for their whiteness. Super important. But just before you keep going, because I think this is important, because I wonder for parents, like, that doesn't feel like a nut flick. Should I be saying to my child, like, that's racist, right? Like you're using a very different language to say to a kid as a star, and I know there's more.

While you're noticing difference in skin color, your skin's lighter than theirs, their skin's darker than yours, that's different than leading the conversation with, like, you're noticing difference in skin color, your skin's lighter than theirs, their skin's darker than yours, that's different than leading the conversation with. Like, you're being racist right now. Yeah, I would not leave the conversation if you're being racist right now. Yeah, well, first of all, it's just a misunderstanding of the term racist.

So, racist is going to be a personal prejudice, which is happening, and a systemic misuse of power. Today, some of your non-empower here in the United States. So not only is it just a really misrepresentation of the definition of racism, which hopefully our children will learn later on so that they can identify those laws and policies,

but it's not a connecting statement, even as an adult, right? And I'm in a loving relationship with someone. I want someone to be able to say, hey, this is what you're doing, right? You're noticing. And this is where it went left, right? And so that's where you want to be able to say,

but what you're doing is unfair. And children understand that word unfair. So, you know, what you're doing is unfair and children understand that word unfair. So, you know, that what you're doing right now is unfair. What you can also say is you can reaffirm so instead of saying, you know, drawing your line by saying, you're being racist and our family doesn't stand for that. Instead, you can draw that line and say, hey, I want to remind you, you can play with children with dark skin, you can play with children with light skin, you can play with children with pale skin. You know, what matters is the way that you treat people in the way they are treating you and right now you're not treating someone fairly. That's going to have a really big impact that can also go across conversations and stick with them. And one of the things I think about too in these moments is when your kids say these things, right? Even if it is, I don't want to invite any of these girls to my party. You have this

opportunity, right? What do we want? We want to get into that moment with our kid and open it up. And probably we wish for some type of movement, right? That's what we wish. I hope I can't like child move from that kind of pre-pregidess place, right? And whenever you're with a kid or another adult, if you want to have an opening for movement, we can't say something to someone that's going to be the thing that shuts them down, but literally makes them stuck in that place, right? And we have no opportunity for movement. So I think you are referring to that too, that from a effectiveness standpoint of communication, we can't effectively communicate with someone and expect them to listen to us or be open-minded if they feel kind of psychologically, yeah, shamed or threatened or attacked.

Yeah. And what I also see is, you know, there's ways that we can have these conversations with adults, and I may or may not outright call an adult and say, right now you're being racist, or what you're doing is rooted in racist. I think it's so important that we are approaching the conversation and being in reality

about where our child's development, where they're at developmentally. And so what might be right for a 54-year-old or even a 29-year-old is not going to be the same approach that we have with a two or three or four-year-old. And what helps me to remember is that I always know that my child is trying to do what is right. They're trying to do what is right. They're trying to do what is right, so if they're not inviting other children to their birthday party,

it's probably because they think it's wrong. And I have to ask myself the question of, where did you pick that up? Right? So I might even then also ask my child, so you're probably wondering something, will you ask me? Right? And when our child are exhibiting behaviors of pre-pregidess, what I wanna do is not only have that conversation and share in the learning with them, but I wanna make sure I'm preparing my home.

So that's where I start to look inward and I start to look around their bedroom, I start to look around my house and say, look, what examples do I start to look around my house and say, what examples do I have that showing interracial friendships? Do they have dolls that are playing with on a daily basis? What about the other children at their school, their daycare, their childcare? What about the TV shows that they're watching?

And if my children are always getting, this actually happened. I have a school that called me in and they said that they have a white child who told the other black children she can only have one black best friend, four years old. And they called me in and the white family is feeling humiliated and mortified. And it's interesting the families at the school wanted this family out. They said that family is racist, their child is racist, we want them out. And I came in and I said, well, it's actually a really common inaccurate conclusion that four year olds can make, and it happens. And I said, let's just try to take some stock of your family's diversity profile. And I had all the families do that. You knew you started to ask questions,

you know, the color, the what is the racial identity of their classmates? What about the people that come to your home? What about your best friends that you're modeling for them? What about the place that you go to worship if you do? What about their soccer teams? And what that white family realized is almost everything was predominantly or our 100% white.

And so your child drew in an accurate conclusion came to school and shared that inaccurate conclusion with the other children. So now what are you going to do now that you have this information? What are you going to do? What changes are you going to intentionally make? That yes, they're going to push you out of your comfort zone,

but it's going to help your child draw and act your conclusion. Because that's as simple as it is, right? We know our children are absorbing information from the world around them. Just not always accurately. They do say the darnest things. Well, what you said about kids goes along with one of my core beliefs too for adults and kids, which is, you know, we're all doing the best we can with the resources we have available in that moment. And one of the things you do is give parents, you know, more comprehensive resources than

they've ever had or than they've had. So they can give their kids. So we can give our kids more resources. And the thing that you often do, Brit, which I think will be familiar to a lot of the listeners here, is you're so invested in asking questions rather than like teaching truths. Like even that question of, what are you wondering? Right? We want our kids to ask questions, asking questions is a sign of being curious. It's a sign of being open to learning, right? Versus telling our kid only with that, let's say birthday party example, it's not nice

to only invite the other white kids. That's like a sentence I'm saying to a kid. Versus, what are you wondering or, you know, tell me more what you're thinking about like opening up the conversation is how we get our kids wheels to turn. And then that is actually what gives them a new experience to question the kind of, like you said, inaccurate conclusions. They might have drawn to that point. Yes. And then they will pick up that language language and when they notice as they get older, they're friends doing that.

Now they have the language and the skills and the strategies that we talked about in the beginning that we didn't have. Now they can then call out Jacob. They can call out Isaiah and say, hey, I'm noticing this. Can you tell me more? Or I'm noticing this? And you tell me more? Or I'm noticing this. And I think that's unfair behavior. Because now we just, then we just model those strategies.

And I promise you they will pick it up. And you're going to get an email from your child's teacher and say, because I get it all the time. So-and-so said this. And it was a really beautiful interaction. They're being a great friend. And they're really upholding our classroom values. So you and I could could talk forever and we could definitely could talk about this topic forever.

If parents here are going to leave with the couple things, a couple ideas, a couple of kind of concrete actions, what do you want them to to leave with? First and foremost, your child is never too young. Your family is never too early to start doing this work. So whether you're a seasoned caregiver or just starting out, I encourage you to do anti-biased anti-racism work with your children.

So it's first and foremost. Second of all, it's really important to think about your child's development. Continue to follow folks who are giving you tools like Dr. Becky about your child's development, so you can better respond to their questions. And continue to do the lifelong work of reparenting yourself and being more comfortable and confident both with diversity, human diversity, but also with activism and justice. And what does that look like to actually have reconciliation with groups of people that have been historically marginalized, have been historically vilified, have been historically pushed to the margins.

So really find your family's relationship with advocacy as well. And I think the last one, when probably the most important one I should have started with, is community. Right, we want to do this working community with one another. We want to be talking to not only our partners, our husbands, our wives, our spouses. We want to be talking to our grandparents. We want to talk to our siblings, all about, hey, what is it that you learn? What was your earliest memory of noticing differences? Did you have anyone in your life helping you to think about this?

Either I did or I didn't. How do we want our children to feel? Thinking about human differences. How do we want them to live out values of justice and advocacy? And just start having those conversations and they can be uncomfortable at times, and they can be really, really beautiful, most of the time.

Such a powerful conversation, thank you, Britt. And tell people who are listening where they can find you and the projects you're working on right now or the kind of latest thing that you wanna share with them. Yes, I mean, I wish you could see my face because I'm smiling ear to ear right now or the kind of latest thing that you want to share with them. Yes. I mean, if I wish you could see my face because I'm smiling ear to ear because I have a book coming out and I'm so excited for writing it for the last year.

It's called Raising Antiracist Children. And what I really want Yaldana knows is the practical guide to what's full of scripts and activities, things that we can do with our children to share and the learning. That's coming out in June, you can pre-order it now. And then I share probably way too much on Instagram, so you can read along on Instagram. Love, love, love Instagram. But you can read along at Bret Hawthorne on Instagram. Awesome.

Well, thank you, I know. You and I will have many more conversations, and thank you for being here for this one today. Thank you. I appreciate you and everyone that's listening. I am truly humbled. Thanks for listening to Good Inside. I love co-creating episodes with you based on the real life tricky situations in your family. To share what's happening in your home, you can call 646-598-2543 or email a voice note to goodinsidepodcast at gmail.com. There are so many more strategies and tips I want to share with you and so many good inside parents I want you to meet.

I'm beyond excited that we now have a way to connect and learn together. Head to goodinside.com to learn more about good inside membership. I promise you, it's totally game-changing. And follow me on Instagram and Facebook at Dr. Becky at Good Inside for a daily dose of parenting and self-care ideas.

Good Inside with Dr. Becky is produced by Beth Roe and Marie Cecil Anderson, an executive produced by Erica Belzky and me, Dr. Becky. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review it. Or share this episode with a friend or family member as a way to start an important conversation. Let's end by placing our hands on our hearts and reminding ourselves, even as I struggle, and even as I have a hard time on the outside, I remain good inside.